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Banksy's “Girl With Balloon” shreds after its sale. Image from Sotheby's via news.sky.com.

Tom Carroll’s Strategy of the Week

October 11, 2018

"We got Banksy-ed," said Sotheby's auction house in Europe. At an auction in London on Friday, a painting by the England-based street artist known as Banksy sold for $1.3 million and then immediately self-destructed from a shredder built into the frame of the painting. Banksy himself put the shredder into the frame to destroy the painting if it ever went to auction, a statement on the commercialization of art. Now Banksy is even more famous, his art is totally cutting edge (pardon the pun), and amazingly, the shredded painting is expected to be worth even more!

For those of us who drive around Albuquerque every day, there is a vague recognition that we are a city of murals, but no one, until now, has made it official. Well, a new website has catalogued over 70 of the 500 or so murals in the Duke City. And when you take a look, you will see that ABQ has a remarkable collection of murals by some exceptionally talented artists. The website, MurosABQ.com, which shows the top murals in the city, has demonstrated that our city is a national gallery for murals. My favorites are Francis Rivera’s Desert Bloom at the South Broadway Cultural Center (seen above) and Nani Chacon’s Resilience at Washington Middle School. Take a look for your favorites.